Chapter 30
Thirty
Angie
“What is a cure for the ailment merfolk get when they’ve giving their magic away too fast?” Angie murmured to herself as she typed into her web browser’s search box.
A slew of results came up, none of them addressing her question. Yet, she was not surprised. Her hopes there might be more information on Kaden’s condition, now that the mer were being researched, died like a flickering candlelight that had been burning much too long.
A message to Dr. Williams with the same question yielded her the answer of “I’m sorry, Angie, but I have no idea. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
She sat back in her chair, kicking her legs out in front of her and stretching her arms overhead. She rubbed at her strained eyes before burying her face in her hands.
Her phone went off with an incoming video call from Mia, and Angie answered, resting her phone against her monitor so she could see her sister clearly.
“Hey, mèimei!” Mia waved. She was at home, her cozy house brightly lit and a fireplace roaring in the corner of the screen. Jack and Rosie bound by, waving too before running off again. “I wanted to check on you. You know, after that conversation we had about you and Kaden a couple weeks ago.”
“Oh, that.” Angie fought her emotions in the days after taking Kaden back to sea.
When she could no longer hold in her frustrations, she vented to Mia.
Though she and her sister had talked every other day since then, Mia hadn’t brought up Kaden.
Until now. “I don’t know. I’m still not happy with him. ”
“I don’t blame you.” Mia sat on her living room couch, sipping a cup of hot tea. “I mean, he hid something major from you.” She set the teacup down, rattling as it tapped the floral-decorated saucer.
“I’m more hurt he couldn’t trust me enough to talk to me about it,” Angie grumbled. “That little fact speaks volumes about how he sees me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sympathy glazed her jiějiě’s eyes. “Hear me out a minute?”
Angie’s shoulders jerked into a nonchalant shrug. “Go ahead.”
Mia looked down to tend to Jack when he waddled onscreen, pulling on her pants leg and pointing at something on the table.
Mia reached for a crumbly almond cookie, breaking it in half and handing it to him.
“No more after this, okay?” Jack nodded his small head and left, holding the half cookie in his hand.
The sight of her nephew brought a heartwarming smile to Angie’s face.
“All right. So, you don’t have to forgive him before you’re ready.
But do you think you could try to understand where he’s coming from?
Have an open and honest conversation with him? ”
“I don’t know if I’m ready.” Angie stared at her hands and let go of her sweatpants’ fabric she hadn’t realized she was gripping. “Guess I’ll consider it.”
“And you know I’m here for you no matter what, right? I can only imagine how frustrated you are with him. I wish I could give you a hug.” Mia put her hand to her heart and Angie did the same.
“I appreciate you. Thanks for checking in. I’ll talk to you later?”
“Of course. Anytime.” Mia waved goodbye and they ended their call.
A notification popped up on the bottom of her laptop screen with an incoming email and she clicked it open.
It was a ‘tip’ about Serapha’s death and her potential perpetrators.
They had been coming in steadily since she asked, over two weeks ago, but most of them led nowhere.
There was a handful of hate mail about why she was still on the mer’s side after the destruction they wrought in Creston two years ago, threatening that they hoped she met the same fate as the people the mer killed back then.
Angie’s blood boiled at those, and she sent them straight to the trash and marked the addresses as junk mail.
She had been saving them in a separate document and sending them off to Reesa, Leo, and Dr. Williams, and she prepared to copy and paste the one she just got.
She paused, blood rushing to her temples, and she wanted nothing more than to reach through the screen and throttle the person who sent it.
It was a racially charged message mocking her for being a ‘fish-lover’ and asking why she protected the mer when she could eat them instead, because isn’t that what Asian people did?
Signed off with only a crying-laughing emoji.
There was no name and the email address was a nonsensical jumble of letters and numbers that clearly came from a third-party site.
She cursed the person out in her mind.
Angie blocked the sender and deleted it, her hands shaking. The message brought her back to the jeers Nick fired at her in the later parts of the war, and she stood, grabbed the closest couch pillow and screamed into it.
When she removed the pillow, Lulu had emerged from wherever she was hiding, staring at her guardian from across the room. Her tail was lifted high and twitching, her lips partially open and showing off a single fang.
“Sorry girl.” Angie put the couch pillow back, and Lulu approached her, nuzzling her ankle.
Two weeks, fifty responses, and she had nothing.
She couldn’t exactly go back to find a mer in the Northern Queendom and ask them about Serapha’s death now.
Another ding in her email inbox, and Angie clenched her fists. If this was another mocking email or death threat, she was going to throw her laptop across the room in sheer frustration.
With a deep breath, she clicked it open.
Hey Angie,
What if someone whose loved one was killed by the mer was out for revenge? It makes the most sense to me.
There was something she could go on. She replied to the sender, the only time she answered, and thanked them, before saving their mail into her document and sending it to her friends and Dr. Williams.
The day and evening came and went, and Angie found herself in her lecture hall after Dr. Williams’ class, where Reesa and Leo also stayed after.
Dr. Williams was reading over the document with leads that Angie sent them.
Reesa was sitting and doing ankle circles for the joint she’d broken during soccer practice months ago, and Leo was going over class notes.
It reminded her that midterms were a week away and Angie had done exactly zero studying. She hated to cram, but she was going to have to pull a few all-nighters to pass her exams.
“Well. Angie, I’m guessing you’re taking the lead on the last point,” Dr. Williams said, putting the paper down and adjusting his glasses. “You’re the only one out of the four of us who was there when the last war happened.”
“I know some of the people who lost their lives. But I’ll get a full list from my dad.” Angie pulled out her phone and texted Bàba, waiting until the message was marked ‘delivered’.
“I mean, it might not even be a person who lost their loved one,” Reesa piped up. “It might be someone who was against the war in the first place. I don’t know. Just throwing things out there. Or could be someone who hates merfolk.”
“And they would go through all that trouble to assassinate their queen?” Leo looked up from his tablet. “Why not just, you know, stay away from the mer in the first place? Why go kill any of them? Seems weird to me, to be honest.”
“That would be the logical thing, wouldn’t it?” Angie sighed.
“What are we going to do about these?” Dr. Williams waved the paper at them.
“Well, we can start by making a list of the people you know were affected in the war,” Reesa suggested.
“If I get the list, can we divide up who’s calling who?” Angie asked. “Leo, could you help pull up some obituaries from Creston from two years ago?”
Leo’s demeanor darkened and his lower lip quivered. “Look, I tried. But I don’t think I can help with this. I’m sorry.” With that, he gathered up his belongings and sprinted out of the lecture hall.
Angie, Reesa, and Dr. Williams stared at his retreating back in bewilderment.
“He, okay?” Dr. Williams asked.
“I don’t know,” Angie replied with a helpless shrug.
“I’ll do the obituaries,” Reesa said.
“Okay, thank you. Dr. Williams, I can give you the names of the people I know, and once my dad gets me the rest, I’ll compile them into a spreadsheet. Can we go through them together?”
“Sounds good.” Dr. Williams looked at his watch. “Alright, ladies. I have to get going. It’s late and my wife and daughter are waiting on me for dinner.”
“Okay, I think we’re good to go.” Angie motioned for Reesa to follow her, and the three of them left the lecture hall.
Leo’s odd behavior stuck with Angie as she walked across campus. The skies were dark overhead, indicating a coming rainstorm, and she quickened her pace. She called him, but he didn’t answer, so she left a voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me. I wanted to check in on you after you rushed out of class. I also wanted to ask; do you want off this project?” She left out that he had put in minimal effort since they started. “Give me a text or call back. No big deal if you want out. I und–”
The message tone beeped, cutting her off.
She had reached her car when Leo replied with a text.
Leo: Hey, sorry I was driving through a tunnel and didn’t see your msg.
A pause as three text bubbles came up on his end.
Leo: Can we talk tomorrow?